We Told Six Lies

by Victoria Scott

  Also by Victoria Scott

  Violet Grenade

  Dante Walker series

  The Collector

  The Liberator

  The Warrior

  Fire & Flood series

  Fire & flood

  Salt & Stone

  Titans

  Four Houses

  Hear the Wolves

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART I NOW

  THEN

  NOW

  THEN

  THEN

  NOW

  THEN

  NOW

  THEN

  NOW

  THEN

  NOW

  PART II MOLLY

  THEN

  MOLLY

  NOW

  THEN

  MOLLY

  NOW

  NOW

  MOLLY

  THEN

  NOW

  MOLLY

  THEN

  NOW

  NOW

  PART III MOLLY

  NOW

  THEN

  MOLLY

  NOW

  THEN

  NOW

  MOLLY

  THEN

  NOW

  MOLLY

  NOW

  THEN

  NOW

  PART IV MOLLY

  NOW

  THEN

  MOLLY

  THEN

  MOLLY

  NOW

  NOW

  THEN

  MOLLY

  NOW

  MOLLY

  NOW

  MOLLY

  NOW

  MOLLY

  NOW

  NOW

  NOW

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  More from Entangled Teen Malice

  Pretty Dead Girls

  Copyright © 2019 by Victoria Scott. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 105, PMB 159

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  rights@entangledpublishing.com

  Entangled Teen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Edited by Heather Howland

  Cover design by Anna Crosswell

  Cover images by

  Depositphotos/Alebloshka

  Depositphotos/Andrey_Kuzmin

  Interior art by

  Reed Timmermann and Jeremy Howland

  Interior design by Toni Kerr

  ISBN 978-1-64063-422-0

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-64063-421-3

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition March 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Wayne, who we lost but will always remember.

  And for Reed, who I found.

  PART I

  come as you are

  NOW

  “Cobain,” the police officer says. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  Actually, I’m thinking about Molly’s hands. How small they were in mine. Not nearly large enough to hold my heart inside them. And yet they did.

  But now she’s gone.

  So why am I here, still breathing?

  The woman, Officer Hernandez, leans back in her chair and adjusts the red-framed glasses on her nose. Her thick eyebrows furrow as she considers me in my black leather jacket, black T-shirt, dark jeans, and black boots. I bet she’s wondering if I always dress this way.

  I do. And so what?

  “I figured you’d be thinking about Molly,” she says.

  I scowl. “She is all I’ve thought about.”

  “What makes you certain she ran away?” she asks.

  Molly could read this woman in a matter of seconds. She’d size her up and deliver the perfect response. Something that’d feed a need the woman wasn’t aware she had. And the woman would bend to her will like a ballerina, thinking she’d never seen a girl quite as lovely as Molly Bates.

  But I’m not a master manipulator like my girl is, so I trace the crow tattoo on my forearm, try to remain calm. I want out of here. I hate talking, but I’d say anything to get onto the other side of these walls. Then I can return to searching for her, just like I was doing before they scooped me up outside the locker room, Coach Miller demanding to see a warrant. But I said, It’s okay, Coach. It’s okay.

  And I touched his arm.

  And he was so surprised by my hand there that he seemed to forget about the two uniformed officers.

  I knew why they came for me. I knew.

  They think I did something.

  Suspicious, the paper said. Suspicious, suspicious, so wonderfully suspicious!

  The idea that I had anything to do with Molly going missing is ludicrous. The mere thought of her gone causes the room to spin.

  When my breathing grows too shallow, I focus on Molly. She brings me back. Centers my feet on the floor, toes curled with determination. Molly and her wide, infectious smile. Molly and her hands, forever reaching for me. Molly and her deceptively soft eyes, so green they’d sit beside a crocodile on the color chart.

  Where are you, Molly?

  “The paper said she took some of her things with her when she left,” I say at last.

  Officer Hernandez purses her lips, probably frustrated that I know this. Frustrated that the news leaked at all before they could make an arrest and file everything squarely away. Dust their hands off, go out for pizza and beer to celebrate, and pat themselves on the back.

  “People only do that when they run away, right?” I prompt.

  She ignores me. “Molly is underage, as you know.” And you’re not. The unspoken words float between us. She flips open a notebook and poises a freshly sharpened pencil over paper. I can smell the lead from where I sit. “Regardless of where she went, or what happened to her, it’s important that we find her and bring her home safely.”

  My brain catches on her words—

  Or what happened to her…

  I shudder.

  I hope she’s somewhere with those stupid weeds she likes to blow that tickle my nose and make her laugh. I hope she’s somewhere she can dance the way she did that day in the park, her face tilted toward the sky. I hope she’s somewhere her mom can’t reach, so she only thinks of herself the way I do.

  Please, please, don’t be elsewhere.

  I run nervous hands through my hair, wish I had something to tie it back in. Molly always said I should grow it out long enough to make a proper ponytail. I was getting close before she…

  “You’re a big kid,” the officer says. “You lift weights, is that right?”

  I frown, confused by the question.

  “Tall, too. Aren’t most weight lifters shorter?”

  I fidget, not liking this. I wish she’d get to the point. “I’m not on the team.”

  She gives a half smile. “I was just curious. My son is in middle school. Thinks he wants to get into powerlifting.”

  I wonder why a kid in middle school wants to lift weights instead of hang out with friends. For the same reason I did? To protect himself? I wish I knew her son. I wish I could stand between him and whatever, or whoever, might be making him feel unsafe.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know, though. All that aggression. And some of them take pill
s, right? Makes them bigger, but also makes them erratic…”

  She watches me closely, probably trying to read my body language. I know what she’s thinking. What they are all thinking. They believe Molly might not have run away. They believe she may have been taken by someone close to her.

  But no matter what they think, that person wasn’t me.

  Officer Hernandez softens her approach. Lays her pencil down on the table, and looks at me with kind eyes. Eyes that say she wants the same thing I do.

  She has no idea what I want.

  “Tell me about when you met Molly,” she says, her voice gentle.

  My heart clenches, thinking of that day. Of how she defended me, a butterfly rousing a bull. Did she hold me in her hands that quickly? Was there anything I wouldn’t have done for her from that moment forward? I was easy. One act of kindness and I belonged to her. I was thirsty for it—that compassion. Thought of little else, though I told myself otherwise.

  “We were in the hallway,” I offer.

  “At school?” she asks.

  I nod and fold my arms across my chest, feeling myself soften. The truth is, I want to talk about her. I need to go back through every moment we shared and figure out where things went wrong. Why not start there?

  That pencil again, scribbling. “What day was this?”

  The answer fires out of my mouth like a confession.

  “Friday. First Friday in October.”

  THEN

  Don’t make eye contact.

  My head was down, my hands shoved into my pockets. I was watching my feet move, quick. Get out of the hallway. Into the classroom. Don’t look anyone in the face. Don’t interact.

  But I looked up anyway.

  I looked up because I heard your voice.

  When someone talks as little as I do, their ears overcompensate. And I could tell, without seeing you, that you were new. My eyes met yours, and I thought, Damn, damn, damn, because I knew how you’d react. Because every last part of me was assembled so that people would leave me the hell alone.

  I was so focused on you that I bumped into a freshman, knocking the books out of his hands. I lunged toward the floor and grabbed his things. Put them back into the kid’s arms and muttered an apology, avoiding his nervous eyes as he took in my frame.

  When I glanced your way again, you were looking at me.

  Looking at me…and smiling.

  And I looked down because I’m an asshole and I thought maybe you were smiling at someone else.

  I’d like to say I didn’t think about you while I sat in American History, but my mind replayed every part of you round and round like a turntable. Your hair, so blond it was nearly white, parted down the middle. Your eyes, so intense they pulled me inside out. Your mouth, pink and shiny and curving upward on one side like the sight of me amused you.

  My God, your mouth.

  I didn’t like you at first, did you know that?

  Every time I thought of you and that damn smile, I frowned.

  And then I thought of it again.

  I may have wondered what your name was.

  I may have hated you for smiling at me because it opened this horrendous hope inside of me, and it was impossible to push it back into place. It was a hernia, that hope. A rabid animal that needed trapping. But it’d already fled so far, so what could you do?

  I saw you again after lunch. You were coming in, and I was leaving.

  My heart raced, and I told myself—

  Don’t look at her, you fuck. Don’t you dare look at her.

  But I did anyway, and you narrowed your eyes at me and tilted your head like you were trying to figure me out. A chick with dark hair—Rhana—was talking to you. She was pointing out the table she wanted you to sit at, but you were looking at me.

  And I was looking at you.

  And I definitely hated you then.

  Because now I was going to think about you all night, even though those two rubbery cheeseburgers the lunch lady slid me had almost gotten you off my mind.

  I thought briefly about raising my hand to wave, because really, where were my balls? But then Jet Davis spotted me, and my jaw clenched because I knew what was coming. I knew, and you were still watching me, and you were going to see this all go down.

  Jet, like the predictable prick he is, raised his arms in front of his chest, widened his eyes, and started walking like Frankenstein.

  “Uuugh,” he said, acting like he’d just been raised from the dead. “Uuugh.”

  He rocked his weight back and forth, his unseeing gaze set on me, while his friends laughed and laughed. And you looked back and forth between him and me, waiting to see what I would do.

  Did I disappoint you then?

  Because I did what I always do. I put my head down and stormed toward my next class, my bag thumping against my back as I put distance between him and me, between you and me.

  I was humiliated.

  I wanted to find Jet and beat his face in because even though he’d done the same thing to me a hundred times, it’d never been when someone who had smiled at me was watching.

  When I saw you for the third time that day, I was frustrated. Why did you have to be everywhere I was? Why were you looking at me?

  Stop looking at me, goddamn it.

  You were on one side of the hallway, walking toward me. Rhana was there again, talking your ear off. And then, because I have the best luck in the world, Jet came around the corner, and he got right up behind me, and he was going, Uuugh, uuugh, and I was ignoring it because I was afraid if I reacted, I wouldn’t be able to stop reacting. You were coming closer and closer, and Jet was getting louder and louder, and then finally, your eyes left my face, and you looked at Jet instead.

  You looked at his crotch.

  You covered your mouth and snickered, and you elbowed Rhana and nodded toward Jet’s crotch. I looked, too, because anything bad that happened to Jet was cause for celebration.

  But his fly was up.

  His micro penis was properly covered.

  So what were you looking at?

  Doesn’t matter, I guess, because when Jet realized you were laughing at him, he said, “What the hell you looking at, butter face?”

  I shoved him, threw my entire self into it, and Jet flew backward and hit the wall.

  Before he could react, your hands were on my face, cupping my cheeks. And you said something I will never forget, your pink, pink lips smiling wider than ever—

  “There you are.”

  I breathed hard, knowing I shouldn’t have shoved Jet. Wanting to shove him again. But I couldn’t do anything besides stand there, frozen between your hands. Jet was yelling and pointing, and his friend was pulling him along, and a teacher was sticking his head outside his door, and you were still holding my face.

  You released me then and walked away without turning back.

  Did you know it, then, that I already belonged to you?

  Because I did, you beautiful, wicked girl.

  NOW

  The detective leans back in her chair. “So you two met in the cafeteria at your school? She spoke to you first?”

  I nod. The real story doesn’t exactly paint me in the most stable light, shoving Jet for talking to Molly. The last thing I need is the police suspecting me.

  “You parents like Molly okay?”

  I shrug.

  The detective reads into my indifference. “It can be hard for moms to see their sons take an interest in girls. What’s that saying? A daughter is a daughter for life, a son is a son until they take a wife.”

  “My mom isn’t around a lot,” I say with more venom than I mean to.

  The detective makes a doodle on a notepad. I wonder if it’s code for something.

  “And you have a brother? He get along with Molly?”

&nb
sp; I frown, not liking that they looked stuff up about me before I got here. Still, at the mention of my brother, the muscles in my body relax, and I breathe a little easier. “They haven’t met yet. But he’d like her if he did.”

  The detective taps a nail on the table. I glance at it and realize it’s painted red. She is a woman who carries a deadly weapon, who interrogates suspects and slams drug dealers onto hoods of cars and handcuffs prostitutes—Come on lady, I’m just trying to make a living—she does all this…and then goes home at night and gives herself a manicure. For some reason, this eases the tension in my shoulders.

  She accepts my altered story and writes down First Friday Oct. on her notepad.

  I crane my neck, trying to see what else she’s got there, when a knock comes at the door. A man comes in carrying a McDonald’s bag and drink. He was with Detective Hernandez when they came for me at school. Back when I thought of them as cop and officer, not detective and sergeant and all those other titles that I’m sure exist solely to intimidate people.

  The guy has arms that are far too long for his body and thick black hair. He looks and speaks like he’d make killer Italian food. Is that racist? I’m not sure.

  Detective Hernandez sits up straighter when he comes closer, but I’m not sure whether it’s because he might outrank her, or if she’s into him. He’s an all right looking dude, I guess.

  Or maybe it’s just the McDonald’s he’s carrying.

  “Chicken nuggets, fries, barbeque sauce.” He sets the bag down in front of me. “Coke.” He pops the cup down beside the bag.

  My mouth waters, and my stomach clenches.

  When’s the last time I ate a full meal?

  Molly’s been gone three days. Three days past when we were supposed to meet. When we were supposed to run away and start our lives over together.

  Detective Hernandez and the dude stare at me, and I stare at them.

  The McDonald’s feels like a test.

  If it is one, I’m going to fail.

  I grab the bag and tear it open, lift the nuggets’ lid and jam two into my mouth.

  “Glad you’re eating, kid,” the guy says. “You’ve been really good about staying and helping us out. It shouldn’t be too much longer, but I figured you could use a break.”